Little Owl bounces out of his nest and lands on the carpet of the forest. The other animals are looking on with curiousity, but Squirrel is the one that jumps to Little Owl’s resque. ‘Are you ok?’ he asks. ‘I’m lost, where’s my mummy?’ answers Little Owl, and here commences the great search for Little Owl’s mummy. When Squirrel asks Little Owl to describe his/her mummy Little Owl shows Squirrel: she’s big – like this – she’s got pointy ears – like this- or she has big eyes – like this! When reading the book my daughter likes to spreads her arms out wide to show how big mummy is and make pointy ears and big eyes.

Squirrel confuses Little Owl’s mummy with all sorts of forest animals that fit the descriptions and my daughter has endless fun pointing out the silliness of the mistakes and correctly naming the animals in the pictures .

The understated nature of this book encourages active reading and participation. The written story is rather limited, but the repetitions and most of all the richness of the illustrations more than makes up for it and the book welcomes discussions and chats about what is happening to Little Owl and his friends in this dark and unknown forest. The book was an instant hit. No wonder it has won plenty of awards.

If you want to delve deeper into the forest of Owl, Squirrel, Bear, Rabbit and Frog Chris has generously produced some colouring sheets for the little ones with images from the book.

We can’t wait for Chris Haughton’s next book Oh no, George! which is out this month.